Amount of state school aid for new project is uncertain

BERNARDSVILLE - Officials for the Somerset Hills Regional School
District say they won't know exactly how much a proposed expansion
project will cost taxpayers until the state provides final
reimbursement figures - and that won't be until mid-summer.

The Board of Education adopted a resolution on Monday, April 28,
to submit plans for a $50.7 million renovation and expansion
project to Trenton. The board had until Thursday, May 1, to file in
order to hold a construction referendum on Sept. 30.

But in an interview on Monday, May 5, Assistant School
Superintendent Peter Miller said officials did not expect to get
final figures from Trenton until "sometime this summer."

This means voters will not know how much the actual bond issue
will be until six to eight weeks prior to the election, he said.
That puts Trenton's response sometime at the end of July or
beginning of August.

Raymond Krov, the district's business administrator, elaborated
on the timeframe.

He said once the district had final numbers from the state, it
then had to adopt a resolution approving the questions to be placed
on the ballot.

To hold a special election on Sept. 30, the district must give
notice to the Somerset County Board of Elections at least 60 days
prior to that date. This is to allow adequate time for the county
to print and distribute absentee ballots, he said.

The absolute final date to submit actual ballot questions to the
county would be 40 days prior to the election, he said.

"That's the middle of August," Krov said.

Miller said it was unclear as to whether the referendum will be
presented as one question or separate issues for the high school
and lower schools. "The breakout's an issue up for discussion," he
said.

Aid 'Conservative'

At $50.7 million, the project is estimated to be $17 million
less than the $67 million referendum voters defeated in
December.

Had the original vote passed, $55 million of the cost would have
been financed by taxpayers with $12 picked up by the state.

If the September referendum passes, an estimated $43 million
will be generated through taxes.

A preliminary cost estimate presented by William Corfield of the
Trenton-based Spiezel Architectural Group at the board meeting on
Monday, April 28, suggested the difference between the cost to
taxpayers and the total project would be around $8 million, the
bulk of which would be provided in state aid.

But Miller called Corfield's estimate "conservative." He said
the full reimbursement could still reach $12 million, the same
amount Trenton would have paid toward the original project.

The state aid is based on renovations and the amount of students
in the district, Miller said. The renovations at Bernards High
School have not changed and enrollment in the lower schools,
particularly Bernardsville Middle School, has increased, he
said.

Public Campaign

Whatever the final cost, school officials agreed they would not
wait for those final figures to rev up the public relations
machine.

Miller said the district would manage its own information
campaign rather than enlist the aid of the marketing specialist who
helped shepherd the December effort. The district had paid $20,000
for the services of Patricia Morris Associates of Clark to help
sell the first referendum.

Newly elected board President Peggy Marino said Monday that many
residents had volunteered to compile an extensive briefing book
about the upcoming referendum and other issues, such as
regionalization. That book, she said, should be available to the
public later this month.

Board member Susan Kamins also leads a community relations team
that meets with residents to discuss the referendum and other
issues.

Both Miller and Marino said they expected to pitch the
referendum before home school associations, coffee klatches, and
anyone else who expressed interest.

Visits to officials of the district's three municipalities,
Bernardsville, Far Hills and Peapack-Gladstone, are also in store,
said Marino.

Marino said the board was "totally united" in its drive to push
the referendum. The board was divided when electing Marino over
former president Roseanne Mirabella, 6-4, at its April 28
reorganization, and was also deadlocked before electing Louis Palma
of Gladstone as its vice president.

"We all agree on this," Marino said, referring to the
referendum.

But Marino said the board would have to make a clear case for
what she said some residents perceive as "the selling drawback," a
new high school auditorium.

Critics of the addition have called it too expansive, but Marino
said the facility would be used by all of the district's
schools.

She re-iterated that the project "is a compromise" between those
who voted for the December referendum, and those who voted against
it.

"Nobody's getting everything they want, but this is a good
plan," she said. "Is it ideal? No. But, hopefully, people who
opposed the (December) referendum will see this as a
compromise."

'Substantial' Differences

Miller is currently generating comparative charts showing what
he says are "substantial" differences between the original and
revised project plans.

As an example, he cited the proposed additions to the Bedwell
Elementary and Bernardsville Middle schools. The combined square
footage for those additions would be 69 percent less than that
contained in the originally proposed preK-1 building that was
scrapped.

In addition, work at the high school has been reduced. The
originally proposed 90,000-square-foot addition that would house an
825-seat auditorium was cropped back to 80,000 square feet, he
noted.

On Monday, Marino said the number of new classrooms proposed at
the high school was also slashed from 15 to three.

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